On a totally unrelated subject... I spoke to my friend who sells books on Amazon about the odd pricing and he said that sellers on Amazon set their own prices (although some also choose to be linked into a system that automatically adjusts them based on what others are selling at) and the most common reason for way over the top pricing is that they simply don't bother to research what books are selling for as new and just choose a price and hope they get it! Ridiculous or not, apparently that's very common practice. Occasionally it's just that someone has inadvertently added an extra 0 or put a decimal point in the wrong place and suddenly £9.99 is £99.90. He also said that he suspects there is an element of money laundering going on which would explain some of the enormously inflated prices. According to him, Amazon are now requiring sellers to provide in depth business information to continue selling on there and when he asked why, the person on the phone hinted that it was a crack down on money laundering. So that's how he sees it, but who knows?

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ChompyChipmunk

19/12/2015 03:27:13 pm

It makes sense that mistakes, carelessness and "calculated over-pricing" preying on ignorance that could lead to pricing that seems to high on Amazon. It's interesting how errors tend to the high, rather than low side, though, isn't it?

Money laundering issues are everywhere where cash exchange for goods is involved. Even when you sell second-hand clothes for a small amount of cash, it's the law in most "financially developed" countries that ID has to be checked and so on and that inventories need to be maintained by the vendors. Somehow, though, I doubt that book dealing through Amazon is the biggest money laundering gig. It's easy to catch given the small size of the transactions relatively, the transparency of the activity, and the massive databases that Amazon has, which I would bet law enforcement can get access to very quickly.

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Freda

20/12/2015 01:56:03 pm

Interesting CC! The amount of data held still needs processing I suppose - almost impossible to police?

ChompyChipmunk

20/12/2015 03:52:29 pm

Hi Freda,

Well the possibilities for data processing now boggle the mind. Millions and millions can be done in seconds with the technology that has emerged over the past few years. It's frighteningly simple now and truly astounding. It makes a spreadsheet look like a caveman's tool.

Freda

20/12/2015 01:54:19 pm

Fascinating Lotta, thank you for taking the time to pass that on. There are some possible explanations there I had not thought of. Hope you found some nice smelling greenery!

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julia

23/12/2015 11:31:16 am

the dance performance was enchanting..and so is your home.. you are giving me so many ideas....:-)